That’s the thing I don’t understand: How exactly do they choose their spot? What says to them, This far but no farther? I’ve never asked a potential jumper how they choose their spot. It’s too flippant, and when I’m up here, I’m very, very careful. It’s probably the most careful I ever am.

There was a man standing by the railing ten feet ahead of me. He wasn’t even a particularly hard guess. He was pretty obviously homeless, skin leathery from sun and wind and maybe drug use. He wasn’t looking at anything in particular, and he was too caught up in his internal weather to notice me approach.

The men were usually easier than the women. They could usually be softened by a young woman taking interest in them. The women were sometimes hostile. They told me that someone like you couldn’t understand their problems. It was never quite clear what they meant by someone like you.

“Hey,” I said quietly.

He was a big man, maybe six-foot-six, with shaggy hair and a shaggy beard. I could imagine him, at a happier point in his life, dressing as a pirate for Halloween, scaring little kids and then making them laugh.

“Are you hungry?” I said.

He looked at me flatly. “No,” he said.

So much for the easy way, getting him off the bridge first, under a pretext. I said, “I thought you might want to get something to eat.” I paused. “You know, instead of jumping.”

He blinked, startled.

“I’m sorry to be so blunt,” I said, “but that’s the plan, isn’t it? Jumping?”

“So what?” he said, and it wasn’t hostile. He was probably too depressed to get really angry anymore. At least I hoped so. He was big enough that even if he wasn’t in shape anymore, he could still pick me up and throw me off the bridge without much effort. I thought of the edged ripples of iron-colored water below, of Jonah’s prayer: You cast me into the deep, and all the flood surrounded me.

I said: “I’m not here to tell you I understand all your problems or that everything’s going to be okay. But I’m hungry, and I’ve got enough money to buy two breakfasts. If you’re hungry, too.”